TRANSACTIONS 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



LONDON. 



I. On Pronophila, a Genus of the Diurnal Lepidoptera ; 

 with Figures of the new Species, and reference to all 

 those which have heen previously figured or described. 

 By W. C. Hewitson. 



[Read March 4th, 1861.] 



About fifteen years ago, the time when I first thought it possible 

 that a butterfly might possess beauty, although it was not 

 British, and became thoroughly fascinated with these beautiful 

 things, there was not, I believe, a single example of this genus in 

 any of our English collections. In 1846, Mr, Dyson sent several 

 species from Venezuela ; there are a few from Bolivia and Peru, 

 but their favourite places of resort are those mountainous districts 

 which surroimd the city of Bogota, and it is by the collections of 

 Mrs. Mark and Mr. Stevens that we have chiefly been enriched. 

 The genus Pronophila, which 1 am about to illustrate for the 

 Transactions of the Society (happily named by Dr. Boisduval), will 

 contain, as I propose to extend it, about forty species, not differ- 

 ing at all in the neuration of the wings ; all, with one exception, 

 with the eyes hairy ; the palpi long and densely clothed with hair, 

 protruded in one species to a greater length even than in Lyhithea. 

 Differing widely in contour as well as in colour : in form — from 

 the species delineated in the first four plates (a very natural 

 group) to the tailed Pronophila Phoronea of Doubleday, and the 

 singular species P. Propylea of Hewitson, with its falcate wings. 



VOL. I. THIRD SERIES, PART I. — MARCH, 1862. B 



